Who Are You Trying To Be?
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For as long as I remember, I’ve attracted slews of nasty comments — from family members to new acquaintances.
Most people feel they can say anything to me, and their comments range from teasing to openly personal attacks in front of whoever’s in the room. The perpetrators fall into two categories — either they seem oblivious to how they’re hurting me, or they do it on purpose. But the effect is the same — I’m left to wonder… Why?
Yesterday, an acquaintance — wine-confident, decided she wanted to be frank with me, about: me. She didn’t understand my personal blog, which contains stories of my experiences with love from me — literally called Love, Lauren blog. That explanation didn’t suffice.
“No, it’s your Instagram. Like what are you trying to do? Who are you trying to be? A model or something?”
This attack, like all others, was because of one thing: I made her uncomfortable, and she didn’t like it. Did she think I’m unjustified in showing off my body in bikini pictures? That I wasn’t significant enough to share my stories online? I refuse to accept jealousy as the blanket rationale. There is a root cause for this type of lambasting.
When you openly put yourself out there with a voice to be heard, it gives people a chance to either genuinely connect or create a clear-view target to attack. It’s par for the course in the life of a sharer, and understanding why people react to you in negative ways takes the sting out of it when they do.
When a person spends their life trying to fit into what they’ve deemed as acceptable, they won’t understand a person who isn’t trying to be anything. I am not an imposter living someone else’s life. I live in my life as myself. Genuine authenticity confuses the protective false.
My pictures capture actual joyful moments from my life. Some I write stories about. It’s all pretty straightforward blogging, so why the reaction?
I believe that at our core is Love, but in many people there’s a thickly layered protective encasing made up with fear-based complexities: insecurities, unworthiness, self-judgment, self-loathing even, embarrassment, shame, guilt, horror at shadow self — many, many unnecessary entrapments that keep them locked away, bottled up inside themselves.
They don’t feel safe revealing the small scared person they think they are. They’re protecting a negative untruth, denying their true glorious nature. These unenlightened creatures are surviving on a lower vibration. They haven’t realized that they hold the keys to their own self-created prison.
It’s awfully painful, sad and unnecessary to punish yourself like that. I remember how many times I’ve done the same.
The more I’ve practiced aligning myself with my core truth, the more I’ve stripped away to reveal my light. Our brightness is blinding to those whose eyes are not adjusted to it. They recoil repelled. But they’re just trying to protect themselves from being hurt by that which they don’t understand. Those who can’t access magic fear it.
Those who’ve never reached joy-state can’t comprehend it. There is a certain confidence that comes with committing to you. There develops a power that can’t be dismissed by disdain, nastiness, and cruelty. My actualization has revealed more of me, not less. The scale can be daunting. Big can be scary to the small.
Women are so used to body-shaming themselves that seeing someone comfortable in theirs can be confusing. In my pictures, I am actually modeling my client’s bikinis for her. Perhaps not with the preconceived body-idea of how she thinks a model should look, but I’m doing it all the same.
Many women haven’t learnt to love their bodies, and those are the women likely to judge yours. The judgment on my body is a closed case: delusions of not good enough were denied because self-love was accepted.
When you’re open, you create the space for others to enter. Not everyone has cultivated that capacity. They exist in a confined space, not playing in the vastness of infinite possibilities.
When they’re embraced by your no guilt applied, no judgment required acceptance, they often share things they’d never normally share, so conversations become a cathartic release for them. There’s so much to pour out of them that’s been stagnant in emotionally murky fear-swamps that their unearthing is unnerving.
They start to reveal, and begin to peel back the layers, but many are stuck so tightly in place that it feels painful for them. They react in attack to protect and hold on to the lies about who they think they are.
They cannot comprehend a person who’s comfortable with their inside self reflecting their outside self. The transparency is confusing. There’s nothing to hide? These people live in encased personas; their light is so dim they merge into the shadows.
Your brightness illuminates their cave lives and suddenly they see things they never saw before. Many will close their eyes and shut you out. And that’s okay, because you don’t belong in the darkness with them.
Understand that you’re being looked over, not overlooked, because being an original attracts attention. Your voice is causing a conversation in people’s minds. Show them what lies on the other side of fear, and you’ll plant the possibility for them to grow up. As light overcomes darkness, so too does love override hate.
When faced with those small and stuck, let it serve to magnify the full size of your glorious glowing nature. Continue to shine your light and share your love, and you’ll blaze a trail for the timid to follow. Remember that when the arrows of judgment pierce you, they simply allow more of your light to shine out.
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